thank you. we're going to be reading axios a.m. in a little bit. you can sign up for the newsletter at signup.axios.com. that does it for me on this tuesday morning. "morning joe," everybody, starts right now. before the impeachment hearing began, a lawyer for the republicans made quite an entrance. look at what he brought with him. meanwhile, his wife is at the whole foods checkout with a briefcase full of depositions. >> good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is tuesday, december 10th along with joe, willie and me we have msnbc contributor mike barnicle. associate editor of commentator magazine noah rothman. and msnbc political analyst, eugene robinson. also with us, "new york times" reporter and msnbc national

security analyst, michael schmidt who will be with us in just a moment. we're miccing him up. nbc news and name law analyst and editor and chief of law fair benjamin wittes is with us this morning, as well as julia ainslie. at 9:00 a.m. this morning, house democrats are expected to hold a news conference to announce articles of impeachment against the president. five sources familiar with the discussions tell nbc news democrats will bring two charges, abuse of power and obstruction of congress. two people familiar with the matter tell "the washington post" that under the current plan, the judiciary committee would vote on the articles on thursday setting up a floor vote next week. this comes a day after the release of the 434-page ig report that found the fbi was justified in opening the 2016

trump/russia investigation. also today, the president meets with russia's foreign minister in the oval office. quite some timing, joe. >> what a day yesterday, my gosh. >> incredible. >> you saw at some point the republicans on the judiciary committee just -- just seeming to lose their minds screaming and yelling, chasing their own tails in a circle. it was about the same time the ig report came out. and, willie, the ig report, well, it was devastating to everything that donald trump has been saying for the past three years. his lie about barack obama, you know, crawling around trump tower like bugging his phone. a lie. the lie from the attorney general of the united states, just shocking, that fbi agents, quote, spied, spied on the president of the united states.

a lie. lindsey graham and william barr's claim that the russia investigation began because of the steel dossiee dossier, a li disproven from the timeline that a third grader could figure out if you just gave them the times and the dates. and, yet, i guess what should not surprise us is william barr continues to lie. and now more troubling is he has a u.s. attorney that is going around lying too. because, you know, i saw this, somebody said this yesterday, if any other attorney general had aduesed t accused the fbi of spying and all the things that william barr accused it of and then it was disproven, all of his conspiracy theories disproven, i was shown

to to be a liar by an inspector general's report, well, any other attorney general would be forced to resign. this attorney general, he just keeps lying. it's all he knows how to do now. i mean, he holds a press conference afterwards attacking the ig report. and some of the arguments that the republicans made yesterday. >> oh. >> dear, lord. i looked back to the halse ondao when we listened to the president talking about flushing toilets. >> this report, this ig report, comes from within william barr's justice department. he sits at the head of that department. the inspector general initiated this investigation. took him a couple of years and they found the top line that this conspiracy theory of bugged phones and a deep state effort to investigate donald trump's campaign simply was not true. there are pieces of the 434 page

report republicans are sooegs on seizing on on the way the fbi handled fisa warrants and things like that. but all the conspiracy theories they've been spouting for a couple of years, simply untrue. let's look inside some of the findings inside the report. they debunked the president's conspiracy theories regarding the fbi investigation into his campaign. president called the investigation, as you'll remember, a witch-hunt. but the ig reports no evidence was found that political bias or improper motivation influenced the bureau's decision. the president claimed the fbi spied on his campaign, but the inspector general found no evidence the bureau tried to place anyone in the campaign, recruit anyone from the campaign, or try to get someone to report on the campaign. the president also claimed the investigation was opened based on steele dossier. they say the investigators that

opened the investigation did not become aware in the steele dossier until two weeks later. they did take issue about the way they went about monitoring. the report identified, quote, at least 17 significant inaccuracies or omissions in fisa applications for a warrant. the mueller investigation has resulted in convictions for six of the president's associates, including a campaign chairman, cochairman, and national security adviser. so there you have it, joe. the inspector general of the justice department that william barr leads, despite what he said yesterday in his press conference, has concluded there was no deep state conspiracy out to get the 2016 trump campaign. >> well, you know what else was revealed yesterday in the report was something that we knew during the campaign, and there was a split inside the fbi during the 2016 campaign. a lot of agents were not fans of

donald trump and a lot of agents were not fans of hillary clinton. in fact, there were a lot of agents, important agents, who were cheering on the election of donald trump. i saw yesterday one part of it on november 9th the handling agent and co-case handling agent were celebrating the election of donald trump and instant messages exchanges going trump, ha, ha, ha, blank just got real. i saw a blununch of blanks this morning. and then the agent goes lol. this deep state theory is ridiculous and suggests again they're either liars or fools because during the campaign was obvious there was a split. and a lot of people inside the

fbi did not like hillary clinton at all. but benjamin wittes, as we go back out to 30,000 feet, the overview of this ig report is devastating to every one of donald trump's conspiracy theories about the fbi investigation into his relationship with russia during the campaign. >> yeah, it really is. and that's without, you know, without saying that the findings on the fisa handling of the fisa application are not serious and upsetting, which they are. but it is really important to remember today what the allegations were that gave rise to this investigation in the first place. i mean, we were assured by the president repeatedly that there was a treasonous coup against him. we were told that this text that peter strzok sent to lisa page

invoking the words insurance policy reflected some grand conspiracy. we were assured that there was an illegal wire to, that there was spying on the trump campaign, that there was shenanigans and mishandling of confidential informants, that there was something improper about using material from christopher steele, and that the investigation, in fact, did not start when the fbi said it started but had gone back some significant time before then. all of that turns out to be arrant nonsense, which is not a surprise in the sense that there was no evidence for any of it ever. but it has really occupied an immense amount of time on certain cable television networks and an incredible number of trees have died in the propagation of these myths. and they have become truths for

a lot of people. and i think that, you know, makes it a significant day when the inspector general of the justice department who, you know, the president has repeatedly insisted was going to come in and validate all this stuff and, you know, prompt the great reckoning, comes in and says, actually it's all a lot of nonsense. >> michael schmidt, you've been reporting and covering these series of events for quite some time and as ben wittes just stated, once again the attorney general of the united states bill barr stepped on the report with his own press release indicating that basically we're going to move on forward, this is not much. but, in the context of what's going on, john durham, u.s. attorney from hartford, connecticut, charged with investigating the same things that inspector general horowitz had investigated, is continuing

with his investigation. and he, too, issued a statement. were you surprised at the timing of durham's statement and what's next? >> well, it was surprising to see a statement from sort of a career prosecutor coming out in the middle of an investigation to sort of knock down some notions publicly or sort of, you know, be part of a public-relations strategy that was coming out of the justice department. durham essentially saying that he has more information or different information than what horowitz has and that his conclusions about the opening of this investigation will be different than the ones in the report. now, the conclusion in the report yesterday about how the investigation is opened, because that is sort of the central issue here, did the fbi legally within its right following fbi guidelines do the right thing when it started this

investigation, when it started looking into it? was there enough there for them to dig? and the report yesterday basically saying, yes, the fbi did the right thing by starting this investigation. they acknowledge that the threshold to start an investigation is fairly low, but that that threshold was met. i think ultimately if you're the president and you look at the results of yesterday, if you could have -- if you could change anything and switch it and you could have had the political bias by the fbi leadership instead of the mistakes, the important mistakes that we learned about yesterday that were made in the application for the carter page fisa, i'm sure the president would have it reversed. he could hawould have had a dif result. but that's not what happened. and there was some real wrongdoing and some mistakes and some real problems that came up, but it was not what the president wanted. >> julia ainslie, this statement by federal prosecutor john

durham, based on the evidence collected to date and while our investigation is ongoing, last month we advised the inspector general that we do not agree with some of the reports' conclusions as to predication and how the fbi case was opened. explain why this statement is so stunning to veterans of the intel and legal community. >> well, mika, we were all scratching our heads in the press room at the justice department when we saw that. generally when a u.s. attorney comes out and decides to show his or her hands on what they're investigating before the investigation is concluded, that's because of a reason of national security. something that they feel is so important that the public knows that they're willing to go ahead and say some of the findings before they've done all of their investigation. it's really hard to make the argument in this case that there was a national security interest for john durham to put out that statement to say that he already has come to some conclusions in his investigation before it

wraps. also, he's talking -- he's going up against an investigation from horowitz that has been nearly two years in the making. john durham just opened his in may. and the timing of that statement really can't be understated 'the it came just moments after william barr's own statement saying that he thought that the horowitz investigation was -- did not reach the conclusions that he agreed with and that the russia probe was launched on the thinnest of suspicions. so these two men really seemed in lockstep together. to you think about it, the entire reason why the attorney j general said he appointed durham was to get at an independent investigation. there was a third statement which seemed more in line to what we're used to seeing when the head of an agency has to respond to a report. that was from chris wray. he said he wanted to look at the conduct of the people who were involved, to look at the mistakes that were made and do a

review of the process which is something that has long been talked about in this country when we look at how u.s. citizens are put under surveillance. that's a debate a lot of people think is worth having. but christopher ray took a different route than we saw the attorney general and his hand picked u.s. attorney to investigate this, john durham. very different from what they said yesterday. >> gene robinson, let's make no mistake of it, john durham now is nothing more than a hack who is working for donald trump's hack, the attorney general of the united states. he asked -- donald trump asked several years ago, where's my roy cone? well, he found him. because roy cone, attorney general roy cone after the mueller report came out quickly -- quickly mischaracterized what happened and the conclusions of the mueller report. so much so that mueller called him up and expressed his concern at that. and then yesterday you have -- it's incredible, you have the

attorney general of the united states and a hand-picked prosecutor not acting as legal guardians of our constitution, legal conservators. you actually have them acting as basically a latter day scaramucci or a latter day sarah huckabee sanders where they aren't officers of the court. when you put out a press release like that, you're nothing more than a hack, you're a pr hack for a failed reality tv show host whose branding exercise went horribly wrong and got him elected president of the united states. but that's what durham chose to do yesterday. there was no legal reason for him to put out any statement after an inspector general's report other than because he's

now a hack for a failed reality tv show host. >> right. that's -- that's the -- that's the other big story out of the justice department yesterday. the top story, of course, is that what president trump has been trying to -- the story he's been trying to sell about the investigation, the russia investigation, the story that fox news has been trying to sell, and all of the congressional republicans have been trying to sell and continue to try to sell is -- is complete nonsense. it's completely wrong. it did not -- it did not happen. this was -- there was no spying. there was -- >> it's -- >> it was -- >> it's pizza gate. >> exactly. >> the conspiracy theory is no more accurate than pizza gate. >> right. it's just as accurate as pizza gate. that's a good analogy. so that's the number one thing. and just one quick thing on the timeline, the problem with the carry the page fisa warrant

which are serious and should be investigated. i've read a lot about fisa in the past and rule and potential abuses, but that happened two months after the investigation had been started. >> yes. >> it wasn't based on the carter page warrant. it wasn't based on the dossier written by ivanka trump's friend christopher steele, it just wasn't. all this stuff is wrong. the other big story is what you were just talking about. the shocking really politicization of the justice department and the use of -- for the attorney general and a sitting u.s. attorney to act in this nakedly political way on the day that the inspector general report comes out and to rush out these statements that are clearly designed for the political arena, clearly designed to give political cover, it's hardly a fig leaf, but some political cover to president trump is truly

shocking. and i think americans should be appalled. >> well, and, willie, the outrageousness of it all, again, all of donald trump's lies, all of his conspiracy theories laid bare. and as gene said, the conspiracy theories about the fisa warrant and carter page and that starting the investigation can be disproven by a three-second look at a timeline. the same thing with the steele dossier. it doesn't matchup. the timeline, it just doesn't match up. but in this case of durham, i think -- i mean, we know -- we know barr will do anything for donald trump. he's his roy cohen. he's his hack. we know that. he's already committed perjury before congress. i'm surprised somebody hasn't moved to disbar him, because he really should be disbarred. and we'll see if durham should be disbarred as well. it's happened before, bill clinton got disbarred for perjury and we'll see if these

men continue doing what they do. perhaps they'll be disbarred too and perhaps justice will -- they will be met with the justice they deserve. but with durham, willie, he rushes a statement out and the statement is not in response to something that a mob boss said that he thought he needed to clear the error thatair or a dr did that he thought he had to rush a statement out to undermine that. he, durham, an officer of the court, felt the need to rush out a pr statement, like a pr hack, in response to an inspector general's report from his own department. i mean, this is so sleazy. it's so humiliating for this man. i mean, how low is -- is he going to be smoking cigars with

rudy giuliani and drinking wine with rudy giuliani at some donald trump like gold-plated club in the near future? why would anyone shame themselves like this? >> and the statement was put out about an ongoing investigation, which is highly unusual. you can add that into it as well. >> right. >> attorney general barr has reached a conclusion along with donald trump and they reached it a long time ago that there was a deep state conspiracy into the 2016 campaign, one they believe continues. they didn't get the evidence for their conclusion yesterday, so he's now enlisted john durham over the last several months to help him find that conclusion traveling around the world to places like italy with him conducting interviews. but imagine being the top of the justice department, attorney general barr, reading that report yesterday, 434 pages from your own inspector general and reflexively coming out and saying i don't believe if thet.

i know you took almost two years to come to these conclusions but i don't believe it and therefore i'm running my parallel investigation with john durham. as president trump said last week, maybe anticipating the report wasn't going the way he hoped for, he said the big one to wait for is the durham report. >> but it's the narrative that they're trying to advance here is indelibly muddied by this ig report. you can't undo that. republicans who were inspect i suppose a political response here, political reaction, should know that they have failed the expectations game in a very similar way to how proponents of a theory of russian collusion failed the expectations gain of the mueller report. what mueller report alleged is serious and actionable by congress, attempted obstruction of justice. but it failed to meet the threshold of a conspiracy to work with a foreign outcome to affect a political outcome domestically. fisa warrant is a live issue. they said for a long time the

necessarily secretive way in which these courts operate makes them uniquely prone to abuse. nevertheless, what was expected here was nothing short of a conspiracy to undermine the sitting president before he even came into office. that's going to create a muted response among the public who expected that and now get something much less serious than that. even though those allegations are very real. so, i mean, i don't want to prejudge this from the second report before it comes out. it's probably not the last report into 2016. we are compelled now to relive that information into perpetuity. but it doesn't seem like they're going to be able town do t undo narrative that's been created by this report. >> and barr doesn't believe those conspiracy theories that he's trying to push. he's actually trying to muddy up the waters and trying to confuse people and distract them from the facts because he has been in interviews where he deliberately lied about, again, timeline saying that the steele dossier

started the investigation or, you know, suggesting that carter page fisa warrants started the investigation were responsible for the investigation. i mean, that was blown out of the water yesterday. every conspiracy theory about how this began and how it was ideologicalal idealogically driven. as attorney general of the united states, barr and durham are trying to concoct a lie to the american people that might muddy up the waters and make people forget about this inspector general's report by a highly respected ig. but, you know what? barr obviously decided a long time ago -- >> yes. >> -- his job was to be roy cohen. we know what happened to roy cohen's reputation.

temperature happ it will happen to barr's too. >> everyone stay with us. still ahead on "morning joe," the president's defenders refuse to let go of the debunked conspiracy that ukraine meddled in the 2016 election. now the fbi director is once again pushing back. we'll have that. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ♪oh there's no place like home for the holidays.♪

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some things are too important to do yourself. ♪ get customized security with 24/7 monitoring from xfinity home. awarded the best professionally installed system by cnet. simple. easy. awesome. call, click or visit a store today. do you believe ukraine meddled in the american election in 2016? >> i do. and i think there's considerable evidence. >> you do? you do? >> chuck, let me point out a game that the media is playing. you know, a question that you've asked a number of people is you've said the senators sort of aghast, do you believe that ukraine and not russia interfered in the election. look, on the evidence russia clearly interfered in our election, but here's the game the media's playing.

because russia interfered, the media pretends nobody else did. ukraine blatantly interfered in our election. >> so it's -- i got to tell you, chuck's great there, but the people in the studio could not help themselves. you hear that burst of laughter at the stupidity of it all. >> here's something, it's not stupidity. ted cruz knows better. it's not stupidity, it's corruption. >> nervous laughter at corruption. >> he's willfully being corrupt. he is willfully, after being warned by our intel communities not to say that, he is willfully being a propagandaist for ex-kgb agent vladimir putin. he is willfully ignoring the guidance and the conclusions of

america's 17 intel agencies. he is ted cruz from texas. he's willfully basically -- basically sticking his middle finger in the air to men and women in uniform who are american soldiers, are american troops, are actually american military leaders who actually work to push back against russian disinformation every day. ted cruz has chosen sides, and he's chosen sides, if you believe america's intelligence community, he's chosen sides with russians. with russian propgandists, instead of america's men and women that work every day in our intelligence communities, he's chosen to lie. he's not ignorant. he's not a fool. even worse for the good people

of the great state of texas, the republic of texas, they now have a senator who is going on national television and he is willfully promoting russian propaganda that america's intel leaders, donald trump's hand-selected intel leaders have warned him not to do because they went to the senate and said hey, listen, listen, vladimir putin and russia has been pushing this propaganda for years now that ukraine meddled in the election along with russia. please don't -- don't repeat that. and this is what news reports from september and other senators have told us that they got that warning. ted cruz chose to push that propaganda when he had intel leaders like christopher ray appointed by donald trump saying things like this. take a look.

>> did the government of ukraine directly interfere in the 2016 election on the scale that the russians did? >> we have no information that indicates the ukraine interfered with the 2016 presidential election. >> and there you go. >> wait, wait, wait. but, michael schmidt, ted cruz said that it was flagrant, that everybody knew ukraine interfered with the 2016 election, despite the fact christopher ray did say that the russian interference was a direct threat to american democracy. but there you have ted cruz and last week it was senator kennedy, the avocado toast-eating, latte-drinking, oxford, john kerry supporter, oxford grad, john kerry supporter saying just the opposite. and every sunday for some reason they go out and say things that the intel community says is a lie. i don't -- and that vladimir

putin wants them to push. do you have any -- any behind the scenes color on why they may be choosing to push russian propaganda instead of the -- believing the word of the america's intel committee? >> it's interesting to how the president will react to seeing him say that. the president over the weekend retweeting stuff that went after ray and accused ray of covering up for other corruption at the fbi. and essentially the president himse himself amplifying that message about his own fbi director. ray had been someone that had sort of shied away from the spotlight since he took over. he did not do many interviews. he was not out publicly in the way that comey had been before him. and yesterday actually doing some of these things, going out

defending the bureau, its integrity but also acknowledging that there are problems there. but, as we see, that puts him in opposition now with the president on this hugely important issue. if you watch the congressional hearings, the issue of ukrainian meddling is a theme of the republicans. it constantly comes up and it's something that has been refuted to them in testimony, but that they have continued to discuss. and it will be interesting to see how trump reacts to that today and going forward. because, as we were talking about before, this report, if he could reverse it, trump would. he would take the political bias open the side of the fbi leadership in whiexchange for t stuff that came up on the fisas. the inspector general's report is not what he wanted. >> i want to us stop.

what's today? today's december the 10th, 2019. i want us to stop on december the 10th, 2019, and think about what you're seeing right now. we just played you a clip again like we did yesterday of the united states senator from the state of texas pushing russian propaganda that all of america's intelligence chiefs and america's intel agencies and the good, hardworking men and women in the intel community and united states military intelligence told them was a lie. but he pushed that. we also, as michael schmidt was saying, we have a president of the united states who is now going to be very angry at the director of the fbi that he hand picked because the director of the fbi refuses to follow russian propaganda. just like this president also, because he has this -- i don't know if it's a manhood thing, i

don't -- i don't know why he is so insecure in his manhood that barack obama drives him as crazy as he does. but he's got this thing about barack obama, he's got this obsession. he's sort of like captain ahab, he just -- barack obama freaks him out and he's always freaked -- i don't know why. i really don't know why. but he's freaked out by the prospects of barack obama. so he's created this deep state myth, this deep state conspiracy theory, and he pushes it. well, that's something that donald trump's hand picked fbi director also discussed with abc news yesterday. take a look. >> is the fbi wasn't part some of deep state? >> well, i think that's a kind of label that is a disservice to the 37,000 men and women who work at the fbi who, i think, tackle their jobs with professionalism, with rigor,

with objectivity, and with courage. so that's not a term i would ever use to describe our workforce and i think it's an affront to them. >> it is, benjamin wittes, you know this as well as anybody, what an affront the last three years have been to 37 professional men and women working for the federal bureau of investigation, the work they do every day to keep us safe. and yet the president of the united states and hacks in the united states senate and trump's hacks in the house have decided to attack the fbi and talk about this, quote, deep state. as christopher wray said there, it is an affront to our -- to the professional men and women who work to protect us every day. >> it is. and it's, you know, one of the odd things about the last few years has been how this terminology which was created to

describe the permanent governments in states like pakistan and egypt, right, this kind of layer of military bureaucracy that underlies a civilian government and has its own financial interest and is deeply corrupt has been imported to describe, you know, men and women who are career civil servants in the united states government and who do counterterrorism and major federal criminal investigations and counterintelligence investigations, it really is a very insulting set of terms. and, you know, we should keep that in mind even when, as i sometimes do, you know, i use the term ironically. but it is -- it's a choice on the part of an entire political movement to characterize the

career bureaucracy that way. it's a piece with the way the house intelligence committee and oversight committee and judiciary committees characterize the witnesses who testified rather courageously before, you know, about the president on ukraine matter, dismissing them as career bureaucrats who hate the president. and so it's a -- i mean, it really did a deeply offensive kind of way of understanding what the fbi is and what the work it does is. i also think , to go back to yor earlier point about the glib comparisons of ukrainian officials writing an op-ed in response to trump, you know, dismissing the idea that russia has invaded their country with russian electoral interference, just to be clear, nobody has

ever, at least to my knowledge, suggested that it's improper for foreign -- it might be unwise, but improper for foreign governments to have something to say about domestic political candidates in the united states, particularly when they talk about those country's issues. netanyahu, for example, talks about the u.s. stuff all the time when u.s. candidates say things about israel. >> biebe netanyahu rights attacs on "morning joe." in this case you had a republican presidential candidate who was basically giving his blessing to the invasion of a democratic power during a presidential campaign and -- >> correct. >> -- and even changing the

gop's platform during the convention. >> the issue is not foreign government officials expressing the positions of their governments in reference -- in response to outrageous statements or even appropriate statements by u.s. political candidates out in the open. the issue is covert intelligence operations designed to interfere with the integrity of u.s. electoral processes. vladimir putin wants to state a preference for donald trump out in the open, i actually have no problem with that. it's a -- it is a big problem if he wants to conduct a hacking and dumping operation using covert intelligence means against the democratic political committees. >> there are so few republicans making the point benjamin just made, we should point out when they do. mitt romney said ukraine didn't

meddle, john thune and marco rubio came out and said it's important to distinguish op-eds from the systemic effort to undermine our election system. they said no one, nothing compares to what russia did in 2016. gene robinson, what christopher wray, the fbi director did yesterday in that interview should not be exceptional. he was basing on fact his defense of his own agency. but it is in an era of bill barr and an era of mike pompeo when the heads of these departments and agencies view their number one job as defending president trump, christopher wray who i remind people was nominated by donald trump after the president fired james comey is a career and life-long republican, will now probably be viewed by some people as a part of a deep state conspiracy that doesn't exist. >> oh, absolutely. he's going to -- he's going to now be in the crosshairs of this -- this sort of trumpist

right wing propaganda campaign to gas light the american people and the world that ukraine did the same thing russia did, which it didn't. we should all remember that there are -- there are russian individuals who have been indicted, who were indicted by the special councsel for specifically doing what they did which amounted to sabotage. it was not meddling with sounds like a much softer version of what actually happened. they did the hack and dump campaign. they did the social media campaign to distort the truth and mislead voters on behalf of donald trump. they interfered with our election in a covert and -- and appalling way. and it has nothing to do with what ukraine -- with what ukraine or any other country --

leaders of any other country did. but there you have it. and so what christopher wray did seems -- you know, it's a model of integrity now. that's what we should expect it's what we should expect from the attorney general and from u.s. -- sitting u.s. attorneys and from officials in these -- >> and, gene, we should -- >> -- to tell the truth. >> we should expect that from u.s. senators. what ted cruz just to frame it out as we go to break on national television, was not just in service to trump, it was in service to russia, and it impacts our national security in immense ways. this is -- it was incredible to watch and then you have the jarring coincidence of lavrov meeting with president trump today. it's very hard not to see how all roads lead to russia all the time as it pertains to president trump. >> and, by the way, what you said about ted cruz doing

russia's bidding, the intel community would tell you that. so that's not your opinion, that's the intel committee's opinion. by the way, donald trump meeting with sergey lavrov, i mean, that's the patriots playing like a jv high school team. but your dad, even though obviously your father was on different sides from foreign minister lavrov, he had great respect for him. he had great respect for his abilities. he was -- i mean -- >> sharp mind. >> he was a brilliant mind, a brilliant diplomat, and your father had great respect for his abilities. and for that man to be sitting now in the same room with zrufrp real donald trump is really frightening, because donald trump doesn't have gifted people around him. he's fired all of them. and we also, of course, have to remember that it was foreign minister lavrov of who was in

the oval office when donald trump brought him in and admitted that he had fired james comey, the fbi director, to get pressure off of them. and he said -- said that now things were going to be much easier because he fired the fbi director who was investigating russia's ties with donald trump. that, my friends, in any court of law would be exhibit 1 in an obstruction of justice case and there would -- i don't think that one would even go to the jury. donald trump would be found guilty of obstruction even on that one count. >> benjamin wittes and michael schmidt, thank you both for being on the show this morning. coming up, senator elizabeth warren has become known as a champion of standing up to corporate greed. but, a newly revealed mem rowe mow shows she once acted as a

consultant for a company having to clean up a toxic waste site. we'll dig into that new reporting by the "washington post" straight ahead on "morning joe." shington post" straight ahead on "morning joe." ♪ i can shine, i can shine, ♪ ♪ i can shine. ♪ i'mma do what i'm made to do. ♪ built for excellence. you start from the foundation up. the excellence is reaching dreams and chasing them at the same time. the excellence is reaching dreams and my body is truly powerful. i have the power to lower my blood sugar and a1c. because i can still make my own insulin. and trulicity activates my body to release it like it's supposed to. trulicity is for people with type 2 diabetes. it's not insulin. i take it once a week. it starts acting in my body from the first dose. trulicity isn't for people with type 1 diabetes or diabetic ketoacidosis. don't take trulicity if you're allergic to it, you or your family have medullary thyroid cancer, or have multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. stop trulicity and call your doctor right away

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welcome back to "morning joe." according to the latest morning consult national tracking poll, former vice president joe biden leads the democratic field in the national race with 30% support leading field by eight points. sanders -- bernie sanders comes in second at 22, up two points since last week. elizabeth warren in third place with 16% support in this poll. mayor pete buttigieg remains at 9%. former mayor michael bloomberg of new york city up a point now at 6% and andrew yang is sitting at 4% in this poll. all this since kamala harris left the race, by the way. joining us now is ceo of the messina group, jim messina. he served as white house deputy chief of staff to president obama and ran his 2012 re-election campaign. jim, good morning. we're inside two months to iowa, that's of course a national poll. we have been looking state by state as well as national

referendum. what do you say in the state of the race and joe biden's durability over the last several months? >> it's true. if you look at vice president biden he's taken a bunch of hits, he's run a lackluster campaign but he still is in the lead and he still is the person that is both in first place in the polls and is the most likely person to be people's second choice. he has the two things you want in the democratic primary, which is older voters and african-american voters are both solidifying with him. he continues to lead in the national polls. but you raise the most interesting question, this whwh the states. if the polls hold up and he didn't win iowa or in new hampshire, can he lead a race where he loses the first two states, that's his challenge. >> noah, that's what they're betting on. sorry, joe, that iowa, perhaps new hampshire even, joe biden could finish third, fourth place. we don't know right now, but that's around where he polls. but he says the race starts in south carolina where he has big

leads and big support among african-american voters. he'll win north dakota aevada a frame they're putting around this. >> that's the theory that people like elizabeth warren and pete buttigieg seem to be operating on is that joe biden's collapse is assumed to -- it will occur after new hampshire, after nevada, and they're both very focussed on iowa right now chewing into each other's support, attacking them for the work in the private sector. meanwhile, joe biden, i mean, to take a little bit of issue with jim, i have not seen the kind of concerted attacks on joe biden that we saw early on in the campaign when he was the front runner. people like kamala harris delivering serious blows in june. biden is out with this ad, which is emotionally affecting, but joe biden's extremely vulnerable on foreign policy. he opposed the gulf war, the refer gees, he opposed the osama bin laden raid.

the sort of things democrats could litigate if they thought he was the front runner. they don't appear to. they seem to be operating on this theorist race that has not borne out. so what happens if joe biden doesn't collapse zm if his support among african-american voters and older voters is durable? >> jim messina, you've heard a million plans thrown out during primary campaigns, attacks back and forth among candidates. could you speak, though, to the one thing that joe biden has far more than any other candidate, people like him. >> barnicle, you're right. this is really when people get one on one were people are comfortable with him. this primary is about who we think can beat donald trump, and people still believe that joe

biden is the best candidate to beat donald trump, which is why he continues to lead in the national polls. and he still has that uncle joe's our buddy kind of thing going. and it's why he continues to remain in first place when everyone in d.c. has been saying for months he's going to collapse, he's going to collapse. he hasn't collapsed, in part, because people like joe biden. >> and, gene robinson, before you go, what do you think bloomberg's path is here? >> well, i'm still not sure he has a path. but -- but -- look, he's made strides. he just got in the race. he's already at 6%. the question is, where does he go from there? he's not going to be on the debate stage. he's not going to be mixing it up with the other candidates in that way. his strategy, again, seems to be to wait until the inevitable biden collapse takes place and then he's ready to swoop in. >> take over, okay. >> he's already spent more money

on television than the rest of the contenders put together, except for steyer. and, but, again, if that doesn't happen, as noah said, why did everybody assume that joe biden is actually in third place or fourth place or whatever and actually somebody else is leading when, in fact, the polls say biden is ahead? it reminds me in 2016 when donald trump was ahead in the polls and oh, marco rubio is leading, no, donald trump was leading. joe biden is leading, that's where we are. >> i think "the new york times" has said that marco rubio was leading into the late spring if the was ridiculous. jim messina, joe biden right now, he does seem like the guy he's teflon joe. he's challenging old guys to pushup contests.

he's calling them jack, he's calling them fat, it doesn't matter. it just makes people like biden even more. maybe this is -- maybe this is -- >> it works for him. >> the overflow of the trump effect. that biden, what used to disqualify biden now makes him even more endearing. >> joe, i think that's right. the fact is, we know joe biden. we've spent eight years with him as our vice president. we know who he is, we know the tough debating style. we know that sometimes he says, you know, some crazy stuff and we kind of like him because of that. you know, he's been tested. and sort of, you know, any new attacks just don't work on joe biden as well as they would new candidates. and so, you know, vice president biden sitting there continuing to lead this tou. this town's been writing him off for months and month and what if he doesn't collapse? we're starting to get to the point where you've got to think that we got to get used to the fact that joe biden is in first

place and he's going to be able to withstand a third or fourth place showing in iowa. he's going to be able to withstand difficult new hampshire and continue to get to south carolina where he's the prohibitive favorite. if he wins south carolina, then we go into super tuesday and see what michael bloomberg's $40 million a week on tv is going to buy him. >> there you go. jim messina, thank you very much for being on this morning. still ahead, democrats are closing in on a vote to impeach the president. we're counting down to this morning's new conference where party leaders are expect to announce articles of impeachment. plus, for two years president trump has called the fbi's russia probe a witch-hunt cooked up by his political opponents about the but now they have found the investigation justified. ken dilanian joins us with his analysis. "morning joe" is back in one minute. analysis. "morning joe" is back in one minute.

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news just broke today that you have a special team looking into why the fbi opened an investigation into russian interference in the 2016 elections. can you share with us why you feel a need to do that? >> i think spying on a political campaign say big deal. it's a big deal. generation i grew up in, which was the vietnam war period, people were all concerned about spying on antiwar people and so forth by the government.

and there were a lot of rules put in place to make sure that there's an adequate basis before -- before our law enforcement agencies get involved in political surveillance. i'm not suggesting that those rules were violated, but think it's important to look at that. and i'm not just -- i'm not talking about the fbi necessarily, but intelligence agencies more broadly. >> so you're not -- you're not suggesting, though, that spying occurred? >> i think that spying did occur, yes. i think spying did occur. >> attorney general william barr. >> what an absolute buffoon. again, usually if a buffoon like that went before the united states senate and accused america's intelligence agencies of, quote, spying on a president, he would be forced to resign in shame after an

inspector women have inspector general's report came out and proved what way cloa cl was, what a liar he was. he also committed perjury before the house and the senate in other testimony. you would, in normal circumstances the attorney general would be forced to resign then, perhaps would even be brought up on charges of perjury. i'm not exactly sure why he hasn't been brought up on charges of perjury. i'm not sure why somebody hasn't moved to start disbarring that man from the district bar. but he continues, he continues to use his position to be little more than donald trump's roy cohn. which is all donald trump really asked for. >> attorney general william barr, what you saw was him earlier this year appearing before the senate judiciary committee where he said that spying did occur against president trump's 2016 campaign. the ig report says otherwise.

welcome back to "morning joe," it's tuesday, december 10th. joinny will joining willny and me, we have john heilemann. former u.s. and msnbc political analyst claire mccaskill is with us. former republican strategist steve schmidt is at the table. and nbc news correspondent covering national security and intelligence, ken dilanian joins us. and after weeks of hearings and countless hours of witness testimony, today democrats are expected to announce articles of impeachment against president trump. five sources familiar with the discussions tell nbc news democrats will bring two articles against the president, abuse of power and obstruction of congress. speaker nancy pelosi's office announced last night that leaders of the house committees

involved in the impeachment probe will hold a news conference today at 9:00 a.m. to announce the next steps in the inquiry. two people familiar with the matter tell "the washington post" that under the current plan, the judiciary committee would vote on the articles on thursday, setting up a floor vote next week. and, joe, this has the president on track to be impeached by christmas, potentially. >> and the democrats have made it very clear choice and i guess they made it from the very beginning, that is don't expand the articles of impeachment. >> focus. >> don't show all the times that donald trump actually did commit obstruction of justice, don't show the times that he cowaered in front of vladimir putin and told lavrov that he was firing the fbi director to try to finish a russian investigation or when he said the same thing to -- so this very narrowly

focused on ukraine. john heilemann, what do we expect? because of speaker's decision, speaker pelosi's decision to keep this narrowly focused and move this along, what are the next couple of weeks, what do the next couple of months look like? >> well, the next couple weeks, joe, and the next couple months, the two time frames are different because you'll talk about the house in the next couple weeks and the senate in the next couple months. i think the really important to just pause and reflect on the degree demonstrated in these two articles of impeachment, the degree of nancy pelosi's power over this process. there was even up until the weekend a pretty intense debate within the democratic party and in many of the interested parties on the relevant committees about doing more articles of impeachment. there was discussion of more -- not just more than two, but the number people were talking about four, five, six, seven, eight articles. people were talking about going back and resurrecting charges from the mueller investigation, looking at those 11 documented cases of obstruction of justice

in the mueller report. powerful democrats on powerful committees who must say we need to broad then out, sometimes for legal reasons, sometimes for political reasons saying -- making the calculation it would be good, some of them, to have extra articles out there so that conservative democrats might be able to vote for some and vote against others to demonstrate purely as a political matter. instead, nancy pelosi, adam schiff who threw out from the very beginning said two things privately to members. fwhun, we will be done in the house of representatives by christmas and, number two, we will stick to ukraine. we now are here with the minimum number of articles they could have possibly put forward under the -- under the assumption there were going to be some articles. the omnibus abuse of power and then had the obstruction of congress. again, it's a tremendous demonstration of pelosi and to a secondary extent schiff's power. i think what you'll see is an almost party line vote in the house, with possibly all democrats voting for both of these and virtually every

republican, probably all republicans voting against them and then we'll move on to the senate. but that's where it's going to be much more complicated picture. but i will say a less complicated picture. that senate trial has implications here because of the two articles two. more articles would have made for a much more complicated senate trial that could have lasted for more like two months. now it's a trial that will last probably two or three weeks. >> so, clair, we'll see less than two hours from now american his frid history. you'll see them -- >> congress. >> do you think they're going the right way here in terms of keeping it narrowly focussed to ukraine or is it worth opening up the mueller report and digging deeper into all of this? >> as a prosecutor you want to bring your strongest case. there are many, many times a prosecutor makes a decision, i could charge all of these crimes, but i don't want the jury to be distracted from the simplest case with the most evidence. and i really admire the

discipline that adam schiff has shown and the steady hand of nancy pelosi because they moved this more quickly than typically congress can ever move anything. i thought -- i think the way they did it, other than yesterday. i don't think yesterday got them a lotpy don't know . the yelling back and forth that just looks like washington, it didn't add anything. but it will be a party-line vote at the end of the next week, i predict it will be a party-line vote. and then the senate trial i think will start in the first week of january and think we'll have bipartisan votes to remove the president. not enough, but there will be republicans that will vote to remove him. >> joe. >> well, i've just got to say, if you are in -- if you're a republican in some of these swing states, you're in a very -- cory gardner especially in colorado, good luck running in the general election saying it's okay to the people of colorado, it's okay for the president of the united states to use military aid that the united states congress already

approved that cory gardner already approved, the president held it up until he could get dirt on his chief democratic rival. good luck saying that's okay and that's not an abuse of power. same with susan collins up in maine. good luck winning a general election unless you vote at least for one article of impeachment. you can go around the country, martha mcsally is in a very difficulties position in arizona as well. this is very clearly -- joni ernst in iowa. people in the military can say what they want but voters will know they're lying if they say they think it's okay for congress to approve $400 million in military aid for a democratic ally who's been invaded by vladimir putin's russia and then to hold that up and to hold it up until you get campaign dirt or at least, at least actually not dirt, but an announcement of a pending investigation just to muddy him up. i mean, it's straight out of roy cohn's playbook.

anyway, ken dilanian, let's move from impeachment to the ig report. i would say an explosive ig's report because it undercut three years of conspiracy theories that began when donald trump wrote that bizarre march, 2017, i think it was march, 2017, tweet saying that barack obama was crawling around in trump towers tapping his phones. >> yeah, it absolutely did that. it left a little bit for everybody, though, and it's complicated. but you're absolutely right. the first thing that it did was say that there was no political bias whatsoever that tainted this investigation. and it made clear what we already knew, which is that the surveillance of trump campaign adviser carter page had nothing to do with the opening of the investigation. nor did dthat christopher steel dossier. i'm glad you played that clip of william barr talking about spying because they went into

detail about the fbi con confidential informantal sources. a lay person might say that's important. but the report may clear, they weren't asking these trump's about their political strategy or about their actions regarding the election or hillary clinton, they were trying to get information about whether these people were coordinating with a foreign intelligence effort to interfere in the election by the russians. and that was perfectly legitimate and that's what horowitz said in his report. now, he repooeld veeld sovealed abuses by the fbi of the fisa process. the process to get warrants to spy on american citizens, which in a different context democrats would be very concerned about. because of the political die ma'amics we're hearing less been that but we shouldn't be because it's important. fbi made 17 critical errors in the representation to the fisa court on the surveillance of carter page, who they never charged by the way. they got fies sa on page, not manafort, papadopoulos and flynn

who are three convicted criminals. and i wonder what we would had seen had they done eyes fifisa s on those three. >> the fisa procedure was terrible. the report lays that out, it wasn't just one clerical error, it was again and again and again. but the big picture, the headline of the report was the inspector general of the justice department led by attorney general barr concluded that this conspiracy theory being pedestrian he will peddled for three years simply did not take place. and for every peter strzok and lisa page, the ig found reasons for donald trump to win celebrating his victory. so those were the two boogie men that donald trump talks about, still talks about to this day, there were also people inside the fbi rooting for donald trump's win. what's your assessment of the

way this has played out and the attorney general's reaction to it? >> well, i think when you look at the history of abuses by the intelligence agencies of this country, by domestic law enforcement going back to the civil rights movement, going back to the 1960s, they deserve to have rigorous oversight over them always. and so we see an inspector general report that are looks at irregularities in the fisa process, we should take it seriously. we shouldn't say it's convenient because we're deeply troubled by donald trump, by his corruption, his behavior, that's okay. >> right. >> because they're on the opposite it's not okay at all. however, what it exposes clearly is the constant lying, the constant gas lighting of the american people that's taken place for years around these issues. and, in fact, there was not some giant conspiracy to undermine the president of the united states by our domestic law enforcement agencies, by our intelligence agencies at all. it's conjured out of the fever

swamps of fox news, the fevered mind of our attorney general, and the other trump partisans and it's unacceptable. and so we now enter into this historic period where we're going to see a partisan impeachment. a partisan impeachment by definition is terrible for the country. because in the end, a partisan impeachment, no matter the justness of it, delegitimizes the politics. it delegitimizes our political institutions as we move into the united states senate. so we have two terrible choices now that have been authored by donald trump. terrible choice number one is partisan impeachment. the only thing worse is this revolutionary idea that's being espoused by republicans that the president is completely above the law, that he can do whatever he wishes to do. that his power is absolute, that it's unfettered, including and up to targeting of american

citizens for criminal prosecution in foreign countries, inviting hostile powers to participate in our elections. so we're in a dark hour in the country and as this moves to united states senate, you just hope that there will be at least a handful of people understand the obligations of their oath against the partisan politics of the moment. >> so, ken dilanian, there's also the statement by federal prosecutor durham who is in the middle of an investigation himself that is ongoing. and his statement, as you can see here, last month we advised the inspector general that we do not agree with some of the report's conclusions as to the predication and how the fbi case was opened. explain why this statement is staggering. >> mika, staggering is a great word. it was bad enough that william barr weighed in and said he disagreed with the inspector general. we've come to now expect that from the attorney general. but john durham has a reputation as an independent actor.

he was hired by eric holder in the obama administration to investigate the cia. he's the u.s. attorney in connecticut, the sitting u.s. prosecutor and he just weighed in in what looks like a very political way on an investigation that is not over. he said it in his statement, we're still conducting the investigation, but i just wanted you to know i disagree with the inspector general. i called around to people, no one has ever seen this before, ever. and what possible law enforcement purpose was achieved by him issuing that statement in nobody i talked to can think of any. it's entirely political and it's predictively being hailed on fox news and trump allies. the durham investigation could last through the election, so it will have served his purpose because donald trump and his allies could say this matter is still under investigation, durham disagrees, disregard what the ig said. it's really, really troubling and no one i've talked to can explain why durham would have done that. >> ken dilanian, thank you very much for coming on this morning.

we want to move now to 2020 politics. senator elizabeth warren is facing criticism after a 1996 memo written by the then harvard professor showed her work as a corporate consultant. "the washington post" reports that the eight-page memo written on a harvard law school letterhead shows warren at the time defending a large development company which was trying to avoid having to clean up a polluted old rail yard in washington state. warren argued that the company had a right to maximize its returns to its unpaid creditors and to survive as an employer, adding that environmental claims, product liability claims, and mass tort claims for which we apparently only seen the tip of the iceberg are multiplying against american businesses. a spokesperson for the campaign defended warren's work as a corporate consultant saying that

she was providing her services as an expert in the bankruptcy system. telling the post, quote there are was no question the rail yard would get cleaned up, the question was which company would pay. elizabeth elizabeth's memo was not about the environmental laws which she strongly supports and has vowed to expand as a senator and candidate. according to her records released on sunday, she earned nearly $2 million consulting for corporations and financial firms during her time as a professor. joe, what do you think? >> ha. that's a chris matthews laugh. what i do think? well, first of all, she has ever right to make money as -- i mean, the conservative, the free mark mark marketeer says she can make money if you're a democratic

candidate. but to use harvard stationary to write a letter to have a company avoid having to clean up a toxic waste site, obviously probably not going to put that on your next 30-second commercial or brag about it in the next democratic debate on the 19th. >> do you think this hurts her? >> well, let's go -- let's go to clair and let me -- >> yes. yes, it hurts her. >> no, but, clair, though, here's the deal. i mean, here's the thing. she's just -- i'm going to say the same thing about clair mccaskill that i said about joe biden and hunter yesterday. she's got to get real. she's got to stop beating around the bush. the truth is that elizabeth warren, think about this, was a red shirt republican, i'm pretty sure, longer than i was a registered republican. she spent most of her adult life as a registered republican. she was remembered as a

conservative pro business registered republican among colleagues that she worked for. again, no problem with that. i used to be a republican myself. the thing is, though, she took a pretty dramatic ideological swing. she doesn't want to talk about it. but it was such a large part of her life, it seems to me that there will be these small eruptions coming up time and time again until she takes this head on. she's got to stop pretending this. again, because like i said, i think she was a registered republican locker th republican longer than i was a registered republican. >> i think she was 47 years old. >> a lot of people have a road to damascus conversion, tell us about hers. >> there's nothing wrong with that but let's pull back the curtain and examine what's going dpon here on here. she went after pete because he

is winning in both new hampshire, some in some polls new hampshire and iowa. so her team decided it was time to try to bring pete down a notch. so they started going after his work when he was 23 or 24 at mcsken decide fm mckenzie for a couple of years, and then the oppo dump about her background begins. and she kind of -- and the prime that elizabeth has is she's been so righteous and her attitude is so i am morally superior because i am pure, i hate corporations, i hate wealthy. i shouldn't say i hate corporations, i hate wealthy people. her whole branding was i don't take money from big people and i don't do this. a year ago she was taking big money from people for her senate race. when you start engaging in negative attacks against someone in this kind of race, you're going to have to expect

incoming. and elizabeth is going to have some incoming now. and you know who's really happy this morning? bernie sanders. joe biden and also bernie sanders. because you understand that she was taking away some of his patina as it relates to the left. and now i think this is really hard for her to maintain that moral superiority about her pure ideology. >> and, john, this bit of oppo or this reporting came out after the warren campaign began to go after pete buttigieg for his time working at mckenzie. this was 2007 to 2010 for pete buttigieg at mckenzie. he was i think 25 to 28 years old. it was his first job after college, gets out of oxford, goes to work for mckenzie. am i wrong that the attempt to paint mayor pete buttigieg as mitt romney as an evil corporate overlord who profited off

untoward businesses, is it a little lame to say that a 25-year-old in his first job out of college is this big corporate bigwig? >> well, if we disqualified all charges that are lame from presidential politics, the discourse would have to go away. it's not a strong hit and it's clear, as clair says, that it invited a counterpunch that's going to hurt elizabeth warren i think probably more than the one -- although we don't know what's in the mckenzie record. all's fair in love and war. it's an up for grabs race. we have four candidates that could win iowa, maybe five. you're going to see the race get negative. this is the time, it's december. but i will say this. the issue that elizabeth warren is dealing with right now is the latest in a series of issues that gets to something that is deeper than what it seems to be about. if you start at the beginning of her campaign, she stumbled over the question of her native american ancestry that. issue was not about her native american ancestry if the was about whether she was telling the truth and authentic.

the issue that started to take the wind out of her sails this fall was paying for medicare for all. it wasn't a question about medicare for all or financing. it was the question about the fact that successive debates, the straight talking, authentic candidate refused to address the question of how much it would cost do medicare for all, would she raise taxes. she refused to answer the question at one point in whether she would advocate and introduce her own legislation if she became president of the united states. all of these hits, and this one as clair points out, are all about is this woman who she says she is? is she a phony and a fraud? i'm not saying she's any of those things, but i will tell you within her campaign there's an understanding that her vul neblt he vulnerability is not on those specific things or doing this work for a corporate clients or sounding like a republican on the product liability questions. the question is, gets to, are you who you say you are and are you straight about, as joe suggested, any changes that have gone on? voters will forgive you all day

long if you stand up and say you know what? i was wrong, i was different. let me tell you how i changed my mind. let me tell you why i'm in a different place now than i was before. what they will not forgive largely is someone who tries to pretend that they -- that there is no issue there, there is no there there. and when there's a whiff of fraudulence about a candidate, it's a huge problem and that is what the warren people know is her weakness. they see it in her numbers and the polling. >> steve schmidt also, you look at donald trump, donald trump is given wide latitude because donald trump never suggested that he was righteous. joe biden is given wide latitude because, you know what? that's joe. he misspoke, that's joe. he's teflon joe right now. but i found through the years, and i know you have too, that candidates that paint themselves as being morally superior, above other candidates, and a great

example, i think gary hart's scandal 1987 hit him so hard because he was the moral crusader against ronald reagan. even though it didn't have anything to do with government, it sullied him and undercut him. i think that really is the risk with elizabeth warren too, as clair brought up, that she paints herself, she describes herself as a sort of moral crusader. you've heard other people on the debate stage actually complain about the fact saying elizabeth, you know, just because we're not doing it your way doesn't mean we're any less, you know, morally righteous. and so when you have that and then you have these concerns about, again, her possibly being hypocritical, it seems to cut her even more as a candidate and hurt her campaign all the more. >> she does seem to have a tremendous talent for self-righteousness and hypocrisy

and it's been on display now for the american people for a lot of this election. the thing about trump, joe, he's the most prolific liar we've ever had as president of the united states, that we'll ever have as president of the united states. but strangely at the same time, he may be the most honest president we've ever had. there's no arta face, he revels in his corruption. he pretends to be nothing else than what he is. you can't say, for example, in a company why is this it that elizabeth warren checked the box as a native american on her harvard law school application? i know why she checked the box. she checked the box because she was trying to game the system. i know why she said that her kid went to public school as opposed to private school, because she's trying to game the public. over and over again she has misrepresented herself in this

sheen of self-righteousness and virtue and hypocrisy, and the democratic party has to look long and hard at this candidacy. do the democrats want to nominate possibly the second candidate in a row that's going to lose an honesty debate to the most prolific liar who's ever been president of the united states? so when trump goes out and he says things like, hey, i hire the best people so i don't pay any taxes. and the media goes nuts and the democrats go nuts and they say, hey, disqualified himself, he admitted it. what real people hear is the truth because they believe to the core of their being that's what all rich people do. they game the system so they don't pay their fair share in taxes. trump isn't discredited for admitting that, he's given credit for it. he speaks in the eyes of his supporters the truth on issue after issue after issue that the corrupt, dishonest, political

establishment in the country won't face. and after a couple of years, if you believe he is a crisis, that this is an expo exigent circumstance, beating president trump is a priority, who the democrats nominate is above and beyond its usual importance in this election because defeating trump is such an existential question for the question. and shade has proven over and over again a proclivity for dishonesty that's positively trumpian and it's time for democratic voters to understand the consequences of that going into a general election. >> all right. >> joe. >> so clair mccaskill, you worked with her. to me, at least, clair, it doesn't seem fair to preach

moral equivalency between donald trump and elizabeth warren. >> yeah. >> she does have some issues. how does she clean those issues up? >> yeah. i mean, i get the point steve's making. i don't know that it is an effort to be anyway dishonest on elizabeth trump -- on elizabeth warren's part. i think -- >> it's your word. >> it really is that i think she has a brand and it's a belief she has, i think it's sincere about the system being rilgd. i rigged. i think it comes from her years of work in the area of bankruptcy and how the middle class in this country has gotten left behind in terms of how the system has gotten imbalanced. that is her -- >> by the way, clair, she seems very passionate about that. >> and she very knowledgeable about it and she's been consistent. >> yeah. >> the problem she has is, i think, that if you've never been in one of these mono on mono races, if you haven't, like,

been raise dollars been raised in a place where every battle you have in a campaign say touis a tough one, oppo research is going to get dumped on you if they can, i think she did not anticipate her refusal to answer the question about how much it was going to cost, i don't think she anticipated what a big deal that would become. i don't think she anticipated that a minimal amount of work for corporate clients in her career could get blown up like this. now, now she's learning. >> out of proportion. >> yes, out of proportion. how she cleans this up will be key. we've got a debate next week and she's going to have an opportunity to explain why she, you know, worked for these corporate clients, including dupont and breast implants and the polluter and she's going to have an opportunity to talk about her conversion from a republican to a democrat. let's see how she does. she's got an opportunity to clean it up before the voting

begins, but she's going to have to own that she's made some mistakes. and she's going to have to come clean with the voters that she hasn't handled all this exactly right. >> i don't disagree. she's got to do interviews where she gets asked about this stuff so she can process handling it. >> and she's refuse doing one on one interviews. >> not where it will get tough. >> this is where she needs a moment of a national interview where she shows that she's not perfect. >> yeah. yeah. >> and let's, mika, let's not overlook the fact she's run a great campaign. >> absolutely. >> she had problems at the beginning, ran a great campaign for months. she's stumbling right now. this happens. and so the stumbles aren't really what matter. you find out whether somebody is -- has got what it takes to be president of the united states on how she responds to those stumbles. >> exactly. >> how she responds to the hard times. will she be defensive? will she have an edge? will she refuse to talk to the

media? or will she respond and say, hey, you know what? that was -- that's how i used to believe. i know how the other side thinks, that makes me more able to actually defeat them in general elections and that's what ai'm going to do. something like that, she can figure it out. but clair is right, she's going to have to admit she's not proud of everything that she did in her past life. and if she admits that, that will put her in a league with about 8 billion other people and maybe even humanize her. >> she probably needs to also admit that she's rich. in one of the debates she actually said rich people aren't like you and me. well, you know, elizabeth's worth millions and millions of dollars and she probably needs to own up to that so that she gets out of this thing that, you know, it's us against the rich people because she's very wealthy. >> these are things that should sort of have been addressed. and the waiting or putting off

the questions is like a typical mistake. you don't want to be -- you don't want the spotlight to be right on you when -- >> there's no better time than right now. >> right now. >> joe biden makes mistakes. he makes verbal flubs. >> all the time. >> but he's honest. >> that's right. >> and we've known joe biden through tragedy and suffering for 1972 to today. >> yeah. >> he's an honest guy. in fact, he's an honest joe. over and over again in this election right down to the medicare for all proposal, let's be honest, this has no chance of ever passing. zero. zero chance. this will never pass. we're not taking the private health insurance away in america from 166 million people. so most unpopular position ever into a presidential campaign by a candidate, 23, $40 trillion of cost. dishonest progressivism is not the answer to dies honest trumpism.

and she is the example of how this guy gets re-elected. you put a candidate into the race that's as southeasterlieri dishonest as she has been. he will win. president trump is now going after his nominated fbi director on twitter this month. willie is following that. we'll have it for your next. willie is following that. we'll have it for your next. ne . great riches will find you when liberty mutual customizes your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. wow. thanks, zoltar. how can i ever repay you? maybe you could free zoltar? thanks, lady. taxi! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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moments ago, president trump tweeted. do you want to read it willie? >> i don't, but i will. >> i really don't want to read it. >> this is what we predicted a few minutes ago that christopher wray would be attacked by the president and become part of the deep state. the president tweeting i don't know what report current director of the fbi was reading but it sure wasn't the one given to me with that kind of attitude he will never be able to fix the fbi had is badly broken despite having some of the greatest men and women working there. joining us now, former fbi special agent and msnbc contributor clint watts. good morning. this comes because director wray in an interview yesterday dared defend his agency, dared say that ukraine did not meddle in the 2016 election. he did not go the way of bill barr or mike pompeo and view his first job as defending the president and now he's being attacked for it. >> just another case of what not do in leadership, i think. it's pretty remarkable.

imagine being in an fbi ranks and that's what you hear about your boss. not really the way to go. but i do think is remarkable is that director wray, i think, has done a great job. i can't think of anyone that's been put in a worse position moving into a government slot and leading an agency having to deal with this investigation the entire time as sort of the backdrop while setting the fbi a new direction. and yesterday he did two things at the same time. one, he backed up his agency. he said, look, this was an authorized investigation, it was done because we needed to do it. he shot down a conspiracy theory with ukraine, but at the same point he said, hey, we have some deficiencies in how we do fisa processes and this is the steps i'm taking to ensure we have a good process to restore confidence with the government and the public. so i think he did a good job with both of those things knowing he was going to take heat from the white house and the public as this ig report

rolls out today. >> clint, i know that you're familiar with inspector general horowitz' report issued today and i know that you're familiar with the attorney general bill barr, his response to that report trying to step on it. so given your experience, your background, i want to ask you, what do you think is the threshold that bill barr might have for starting an investigation? >> that's great, mike, that's a good question because i have no year out. we're one year out from the election. i have no idea when a counterintelligence defensive operation will be launched against russia or any other country. at that point, imagine you're a foreign adversary. you want to tight united states up. you've just watched them beat themselves to death with infighting after this last russia intrusion into our election in 2016. now would be an excellent time to real lly tie up the united states again. and if you look at this, what would trigger an investigation? when i went through that ig

report yesterday, i thoughts it was remark tlbl was able that to fisa done on people like manafort, and with regards to page it looked like they went out of the way to put him outside of the campaign and he wasn't part of the campaign. no one's addressed why those renewals continue to go through on that fisa application. attorney general barr hasn't brought that up. it seems as though his deputy, rod rosenstein approved those renewals and there was intelligence being gained from each of those sclas aurveillanc renewals. so the question is how would the united states defend itself in election 2020 against interference from any foreign power snand ha power? and i have no idea what attorney general barr would approve at that point. there seems to be no predicate that could be established. i i'm sure if you're working counterintelligence i would go into the office and look at the sports page because there's not real clear guidance but about what you can do and if you do get involved, you're most likely

to be punished from the white house or capital. >> i know you're not an fbi agent but you understand the cultural age and the people there. christopher wray sa christopher wray said something that was unimaginable and donald trump said something that he might be letting the blade go here and we may not have christopher wray long for this world in this administration. i ask you this. if donald trump were to get rid of this director of the fbi, what would be the reaction inside the bureau rto that? what would that do to morale and the functioning of the agency? how would that be seen because i don't think it's implausible to suggest that wray's job may now be in jeopardy? >> it's strange to look back over the last few years. on the average day in the fbi, people don't talk about the fbi

director, agents out in the field in 56 different field offices 'the they're not focussed that much on what's going on in terms of political machinations at headquarters. but the firing of comey came as a shock to people throughout the fbi. there was widespread support for him. there was not a lot of thought put about whether his performance was satisfying the rank and file. and i think they see right writing probably from those i've spoken with as somebody who's done a good job of said it dig the ship, dreeealing with all t politics in d.c. and letting them to do their job out in the field. i think there would be a major i don't want to say uprising, but i think there would be a lot of concern in the ranks about how do you do your job effectively if the top leaders of your organization are constantly being fired or removed? i don't think that's unique to the fbi. at this point i can't keep track of who's in charge of department of homeland security, the department of defense when you look across the intelligence community, all those positions have either rotate order you have actings in place.

so i think in the rank and file in government service across the board you're not really sure who to trust or who to believe in or whose orders to follow over an enduring basis because you don't know if the leaders will be there two weeks, two months, or two years from now. >> some might argue that's by design to destabilize. >> clint watts, thank you very much. coming up, peter bergen joins us with his new book entitled "trump and generals: the cost of chaos ". "morning joe" is back in a moment. f chaos ". "morning joe" is back in a moment. ♪ ♪ experience the power of sanctuary at the lincoln wish list sales event. sign and drive off in a new lincoln with zero down, zero due at signing, and a complimentary first month's payment.

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i would be dancing! get started with secure 35-megabit internet and one voice line for just $64.90 per month. call today. comcast business. beyond fast. joining us now at 51 past the hour, vice president at new america and best-selling author peter bergen. he's out with his new book "trump and his generals colon t --: the cost of chaos." we were talking about chaos with positions not filled or yet to be filled in the white house. this is chaos, and chaos is designed to create weakness, is it not? >> i think in this case

president trump is running the oval office like he ran his real estate company, which is basically a one-man show with a bunch of yes men and family members. >> yeah. and those who know him says he likes to keep people concerned about their jobs, on the edge of their seats, worried about what might happen if he doesn't respond well to what they say. >> and when he came into office in 2017, obviously he was the first american president who had never served in public office or the military, and he needed the help of these military stars, essentially, jim mattis, john kelly, to kind of help him understand how the levels of government have to run wars. over time i think he got comfortable with his own leadership and either forced them out or they resigned on principle. >> let's talk about the cost of chaos in your book, "trump and his generals." what is the cost? >> i think when you run an inconsistent foreign policy,

it's confusing to both your allies and your enemies. what is your syria policy? we're going to pull out, then we're not, then we're going to pull out, then we're not. we're going to top the taliban, then we're not. trump hasn't faced a genuine policy crisis, say sudan facing kuwait. we have a year left. what if there is a real crisis? how will he react? >> peter, the argument we've heard behind the scene for years is people like general kelly, general mattis, h.r. mcmaster, they were serving as guardrails. they were protecting the country from the man they were serving. did you get some sense from these men or at least people around them their true view of donald trump as commander in chief? how did they look at him? >> jim mattis was constantly

slow-rolling any kind of military option. he was very concerned not to give military options to the president on iran or north korea, and it was a source of great frustration at the white house. it turns out, i think, that jim mattis kind of misunderstood trump a little bit, because it turns out trump is actually quite reluctant to use military force. he called back the military operation on iran, he pulled troops out of afghanistan, out of syria. he has tamped down tensions with north korea after amping them up. but certainly these generals saw their role as to kind of sort of fence him in a little bit, and also they disagreed with him. >> did they think it was dangerous, unpredictable? why did they need to fence him in? >> we know he's measurcurial an that was their view. >> if you look at the joint chiefs and the entire members of the joint chiefs, they report to

the charommander in chief. if the commander in chief donald trump told them he wanted them to dress up as big bird, they would do it. given the sources in this book and the revelations in this book, you have something like eddie gallagher, the navy s.e.a.l. basically his case bloomed a few weeks ago along with two others. the friction that causes from the commander in chief on down, and the president of the united states knows very little how the military operates. >> the commander could tell them to dress like big bird and they would go along. the question is not can he do it but should he do it? the fact that he pardoned these offices that were charged with some war crimes, i think it's damage to military discipline, but he got elected. that's the way our system works.

>> i'm curious in all your reporting on this book, i know mattis and kelly pretty well. what's it going to take for them to publicly come out and talk about the disaster they witnessed in terms of how this president was operating national security and other basics like the travel ban and all of those things? why aren't they coming out now and really having a say in public? >> well, that is a great question. jim mattis, i think, has answered that he's not going to talk about a sitting president. john kelly, i think, has publicly said, look, don't replace me with a yes man because you're going to get impeached. well, that's kind of what happened. john kelly and mattis have made some statements publicly, but i think it will be a cold day in hell before mattis gets out there, kelly or mcmaster while he's a sitting president. >> "the cost of chaos," peter

bergen. thank you so much. >> thank you. we're one day away as democrats prepare to announce articles of impeachment against the president of the united states. "morning joe" is back in two minutes. it looks like jonathan on a date with his wife. ♪la-di-la-di-di entresto is a heart failure medicine that helps your heart, so you can keep on doing what you love. entresto helped people stay alive and out of the hospital. heart failure can change the structure of your heart, so it may not work as well. entresto helps improve your heart's ability to pump blood to the body. don't take entresto if pregnant; it can cause harm or death to an unborn baby. don't take entresto with an ace inhibitor or aliskiren, or if you've had angioedema with an ace or arb. the most serious side effects are angioedema, low blood pressure, kidney problems, or high blood potassium.

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some things are too important to do yourself. ♪ get customized security with 24/7 monitoring from xfinity home. awarded the best professionally installed system by cnet. simple. easy. awesome. call, click or visit a store today. before the impeachment hearing began, a lawyer for the republicans made quite an entrance. look what he brought with him. meanwhile, his wife is at the whole foods checkout with a briefcase of depositions. >> good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is tuesday, december 10. along with joe, willie and me we have u.s. contributor eddie barnic barnicle, eddie rothman, and

columnist of the "washington post" and msnbc political analyst eugene robinson. also with us, "new york times" reporter and national security analyst michael schmidt who will be with us in just a moment. we're miking him up. nbc news analyst benjamin wittes is with us this morning as well as correspondent julia ainsley. at 9:00 this morning, house democrats are expected to hold a news conference to announce articles of impeachment against the president. five sources familiar with the discussions tell nbc news democrats will bring two charges: abuse of power and obstruction of congress. two people familiar with the matter tell the "washington post" that under the current plan, the judiciary committee would vote on the articles on thursday, setting up a floor vote next week. this comes a day after the release of the 434-page ig

report that found the fbi was justified in opening the 2016 trump-russia investigation. also today, the president meets with russia's foreign minister in the oval office. quite some timing, joe. >> what a day yesterday, my gosh. >> incredible. >> you saw at some point the republicans on the judiciary committee just seeming to lose their minds, screaming and yelling, chasing their own tails in a circle. it was about the same time the ig report came out. and willie, really, the ig report, well, it was devastating to everything donald trump has been saying for the past three years. his lie about barack obama, crawling around trump tower bugging his phone. a lie. the lie from the attorney general of the united states,

just shocking, that fbi agents, quote, spied -- spied -- on the president of the united states, a lie. lindsey graham and william barr's claim that the russia investigation began because of the steele dossier. a lie disproven by the simplest of timelines that actually a third grader could figure out if you just gave them the times and the dates. and yet, i guess what should not surprise us is william barr continues to lie, and now more troubling, actually, he has a u.s. attorney that is going around lying, too. because, you know, i saw this. somebody said this yesterday. if any other attorney general had accused the fbi of spying and accused the fbi of all the things that william barr accused it of and then it was disproven,

all of his conspiracy theories disproven and he was shown to be a liar by an inspector general's report, well, any other attorney general would be forced to resign. this attorney general, he just keeps lying. it's all he knows how to do now. he holds a press conference afterwards attacking the ig report. and some of the arguments that the republicans made yesterday, dear lord. i look back to the halcion days when all we were doing was listening to the president of the united states reflect on how many times he flushed the toilet yesterday. yesterday was a sad day, willie. >> yeah. this report, this ig report, remember, comes from within william barr's justice department. he sits at the head of that department. the inspector general initiated this investigation. it took them a couple of years and they found the top line that this conspiracy theory of bugged

phones and a deep state effort to investigate donald trump's campaign simply was not true. there are pieces of the 434-page report republicans are seizing on on the way the fbi handled the initiation of fisa warrants and things like that. but the top line is all the conspiracy theories they've been spouting about for a couple years simply not true. let's look at some of the findings that the inspector general reported. debunked conspiracy theories regarding the investigation into his campaign, the president called the investigation, as you'll remember, a witch hunt, but the ig reports no evidence was found that political bias or improper motivation influenced the bureau's decision. the president claimed the fbi spied on his campaign, but the inspector general found no evidence that the bureau tried to replace anyone in the campaign, recruit anyone from the campaign or tried to get someone to report on the campaign. the president also claiming the investigation was open based on the steele dossier while the ig

report says the fbi officials who opened the investigation did not become aware of christopher steele's reporting until weeks later, concluding that it had no role in opening the probe. the inspector general did take issue with the way agents and prosecutors went about monitoring then-trump campaign adviser carter page who they thought russia was trying to recruit. the report identified, quote, at least 17 significant inaccuracies or omissions in fisa applications for a warrant. the special counsel has six, including a chairman, a campaign chairman and a national security adviser. there you have it, joe. the inspector general of the justice department that william barr leads, despite what he said yesterday in the press conference, concluded there was no conspiracy out to get the 2016 campaign. >> there was something we knew in the campaign, and there was a

split inside the fbi during the 2016 campaign. a lot of agents were not fans of donald trump, and a lot of agents were not fans of hillary clinton. in fact, there were a lot of agents, important agents, who were cheering on the election of donald trump. i saw yesterday, one part of it, on november 9th, the handling agent and co-case handling agent were celebrating the election of donald trump and the instant messages exchange is going, trump, ha, ha, ha, blank just got real. yes, it did. i saw a bunch of scared blanks on my way to work this morning. start looking for new jobs, fella. then the handling agent goes, lol. this deep state theory is so ridiculous and suggests again --

they're either liars or fools, because during the campaign it was obvious there was a split, and a lot of people inside the fbi that did not like hillary clinton at all. but benjamin wittes, as we go back out to 37,000 feet, the overview of this ig report is devastating to every one of donald trump's conspiracy theories about the fbi investigation into his relationship with russia during the campaign. >> yeah, it really is, and that's without saying that the findings on the fisa handling -- handling of the fisa applications are unsettling, which they are. but it's really important to remember today what the allegations were that gave rise to this investigation in the first place. we were assured by the president repeatedly that there was a

treasonous coup against him. we were told that this by lisa page exposed some grand conspiracy. we were told that there was a wire tap spying on the trump campaign, that there was shenanigans and mishandling of confidential informants, that there was something improper about using material from christopher steele and that the investigation, in fact, did not start when the fbi said it started but had gone back some significant time before then. all of that turns out to b be errant nonsense which is not a surprise in the sense there was no evidence for any of it ever, but it has occupied an immense amount of time on

certain cable networks, and an incredible number of trees have died in the propagation of these myths and they have become truths for a lot of people. i think that makes it a significant day when the inspector general of the justice department, who, you know, the president has repeatedly insisted was going to come in and validate all this stuff and prompt the great reckoning comes in and says, actually, it's all a lot of nonsense. >> michael schmidt, you've been reporting and covering these series of events for quite some time and have been with us, just stated once again the attorney general of the united states, bill barr, stepped on the report with his own press release, indicating that basically we're going to move on forward. this is not much. but in the context of what's going on, john durham, u.s. attorney from hartford,

connecticut charged with investigating the same things that inspector general horowitz had investigated, is continuing with his investigation, and he, too, issued a statement. were you surprised at the timing of durham's statement and what's next? >> a little surprising to see a statement from sort of a career prosecutor coming out in the middle of an investigation to sort of knock down some notions publicly or be part of a public relations strategy that was coming out of the justice department. durham essentially saying that he has more information or different information than what horowitz has, and that his conclusions about the opening of this investigation will be different than the ones in the report. now, the conclusion in the report yesterday about how the investigation is open, because that is sort of the central

issue here. did the fbi legally, within its right, following fbi guidelines, do the right thing when it started this investigation, when it started looking into it? was there enough there for them to dig? and the report yesterday basically saying, yes, the fbi did the right thing by starting this investigation. they acknowledge that the threshold to start an investigation is fairly low but that that threshold was met. i think ultimately if you're the president and you look at the results of yesterday, if you could have -- if you could change anything and you could switch it, and you could have had the political bias by the fbi leadership instead of the mistakes, the important mistakes that we learned about yesterday that were made in the application for the carter page fisa, i'm sure the president would have had it reversed. he would have had a different result. but that's not what happened. and there was some real wrongdoing and some mistakes and some real problems that came up.

but it was not what the president wanted. >> julia ainsley, this statement by federal prosecutor john durham, based on the evidence collected to date and while our investigation is ongoing, last month we advised the inspector general that be do nwe do not a with some of the report's conclusions as to predication and how the fbi case was opened. explain why this is so stunning to the intel committee. >> we were all scratching our heads in the justice department when we saw that. generally when a u.s. attorney comes out and decides to show his or her hands on what they were investigating before the investigation is concluded, that's because of a reason of national security, something that they feel is so important that the public knows that they're willing to go ahead and say some of the findings before they've done all of their investigation. it's really hard to make the argument in this case that there was a national security interest

for john durham to put out that statement to say that he already has come to some conclusions in his investigation before it wraps. also, he's talking -- he's going up against an investigation from horowitz that has been nearly two years in the making. john durham just opened his in may. and the timing of that statement really can't be understated. it came just moments after william barr's own statement saying that he thought that the horowitz investigation was -- did not reach the conclusions that he agreed with and that the russia probe was launched on the thinnest of suspicions. these two men really seemed in lockstep together, and if you think about it, the entire reason why the attorney general said he appointed john durham was to get at an independent investigation. there was a third statement, though, that actually seemed more in line to what we're used to seeing when the head of an agency has to respond to an inspector general report, and that was from the fbi director, chris wray, who said he wanted

to look at the conduct of the people who were involved with these fisa applications, to look at the mistakes that were made and to do a review of the process, which is something that has long been talked about in this country. when we look at how u.s. citizens are put under surveillance, that's a debate a lot of people think are worth having. >> julia ainsley, thank you. still ahead on "morning joe," back in may christopher wray distanced himself from william barr's use of the word "spying" to describe surveillance on the trump campaign. now the fbi director is breaking with the attorney general again. we'll talk about that straight ahead, but first let's go to bill karans with a check on the forecast. bill? >> it's one of those wild weather mornings when we have extreme temperature changes and snow in a few spots. we have snowflakes flying just north of dallas here on the oklahoma border. even areas of arkansas are getting some snow and we're starting to see rain turn to snow in memphis.

we will see some airport problems, and later on tonight, rain goes into snow in areas of central new england. we have winter weather advisories for 20 million people mostly because we have boston and new england included in that. from huntsville, alabama, to knoxville, through the appalachians tonight, and then it looks like i-95 tomorrow morning at this time, rain over snow at this time. even d.c. could get a coating on the grass. i think the roads will be okay. the bridges and overpasses could be slippery. it is negative 32 when you walk outside in fargo right now. it is 67 in atlanta. that's almost a 100-degree temperature change in areas from the northern plains to the southeast. so big changes there today, and that cold air will make its way to the east coast. if you're traveling at the airports today, unfortunately, once again when the rain moves in later today along with some of the winds, the new york city airports could be a mess just

like they were yesterday, along with areas like baltimore and washington, d.c. maybe a few problems of rain going into snow at national. it won't be a huge deal. anyone driving late today will see some of that rain and slowdowns from boston to raleigh along i-95. it feels like 4 degrees in downtown chicago, michigan ave. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ♪ let's create a plan for what's next. i like that. get a plan that's right for you. td ameritrade. get a plan that's right for you. at chevy, we're all about bringing families together. this time of year, that's really important. so we're making it easier than ever to become part of our family. man: that's why our chevy employee discount

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do you believe ukraine meddled in the american election in 2016? >> i do, and i think there is considerable evidence -- >> you do? >> chuck, let me point out a game that the media is playing. a question that you've asked a number of people. you've said to senators sort of

aghast, do you believe that ukraine and not russia interfered in the election? on the evidence, russia clearly interfered in our election, but here's the game the media is playin playing. because russia interfered, the media pretends nobody else did. ukraine blatantly interfered in our election. >> that was senator ted cruz on sunday. fbi director christopher wray isn't buying it. >> did the governor of ukraine interfere in the 2016 election on the scale that the russians did? >> we have no information that the ukranians interfered in the 2016 presidential election. >> and there you go. >> but michael schmidt, ted cruz said that it was flagrant, that everyone knew ukraine interfered with the 2016 election despite the fact christopher wray did say that the russian interference was a direct threat to american democracy. but there you have ted cruz, and last week it was senator

kennedy, the avocado toast-eating, latte-drinking oxford john kerry supporter saying just the opposite. every sunday for some reason they go out and say things that the intel community says is a lie. i don't -- and that vladimir putin wants him to push. do you have any behind-the-scenes color on why they may be choosing to push russian propaganda instead of believing the words of america's intel community? >> well, obviously this is what the president wants to hear, and it will be interesting to see how he reacts to seeing wray say that. the president, over the weekend, retweeting stuff that basically went after wray and accused wray of covering up for other corruption at the fbi. and essentially the president

himself amplifying that message about his own fbi director. and wray had been someone that had sort of shied away from the spotlight since he took over. he did not do many interviews, he was certainly not out publicly in the way that comey had been before him, and yesterday actually doing some of these things, going out, defending the bureau, its integrity, but also acknowledging that there are problems there. but as we see, that puts him in opposition now with the president on this hugely important issue. if you watch the congressional hearings, the issue of ukranian meddling is a theme of the republicans. it constantly comes up and it's something that has been refuted to them in testimony, but that they have continued to discuss. and it will be interesting to see how trump reacts to that today and going forward, because

as we were talking about before, this report, if he could reverse it, trump would. he would take the political bias on the side of the fbi leadership in exchange for this stuff that came up on the fisas. and the inspector general's report is not what he wanted. coming up on "morning joe," the latest on the democrats' race for president and where michael bloomberg now stacks up. we'll talk about that with jim mecina who led barack obama's campaign. that's next on "morning joe." ain that's next on "morning joe. what if numbers tell only half the story? at t. rowe price, hundreds of our experts go beyond the numbers to examine investment opportunities firsthand. like a biotech firm that engineers

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welcome back to "morning joe." according to the latest consult national tracking poll, former vice president joe biden leads the democratic field in the national race with 30% support, leading the field by eight points. bernie sanders comes in second at 22, up two points since last week. senator elizabeth warren in third place with 16% support in this poll. mayor pete buttigieg remains at 9%. former mayor michael bloomberg up a point now at 6%, and andrew

yang is sitting at 4% in this poll. all of this since kamala harris left the race, by the way. jim mecina served as white house deputy chief of staff to president obama and ran his 2012 reelection campaign. jim, good morning. we're inside two months to iowa. that, of course, is a nartional poll. we've been looking state-by-state as well. what do you see in the state of the race and joe biden's durability the last several months? >> it's true, joe biden has taken some hits. he's run a lackluster campaign, but he's still in the lead and he steals the first place in the polls and he's likely to be in second place. he attracts older voters and african-american voters. they're both solidifying with him so he continues to lead in the national polls. you raised a significant question, which is the states. if the polls hold up in iowa and he doesn't win iowa and he

doesn't win new hampshire, can he continue to lead a national race where he loses the first two states? that's his challenge. >> and that's what they're betting on, that iowa, perhaps new hampshire, even. joe biden could finish third or fourth place. that's around where he polls. but he says the race starts in south carolina where he has big leads, big support among african-american voters. he'll win nevada and then sweep into super tuesday. that seems to be the framing the biden campaign is putting around this. >> the theory that people like elizabeth warren and pete buttigieg seem to be operating on is that joe biden's collapse is assumed -- it will occur after new hampshire, after nevada, and they're both very focused on iowa right now, chewing into each other's support, attacking them for their work in the private sector. meanwhile, joe biden, to take a little bit of issue with jim, i have not seen the kind of concerted attacks on joe biden that we saw early on in the

campaign when he clearly was the frontrunner and people like kamala harris delivering very serious blows in june. joe biden is now out with this ad, a foreign policy ad, which is very effective, emotionally affecting. but joe biden is extremely against foreign policy. he opposed the gulf war, he opposed the osama bin laden raid, the sort of things democrats could litigate if they thought he was the frontrunner. they don't appear to. they seem to be operating on this theory of the race that has not borne out. what happens if joe biden doesn't collapse, if his support of older voters and african-americans is durable after iowa and new hampshire? there doesn't seem to be an answer to that question. >> jim mecina, you've been through a million primaries, you've heard a million plans thrown out during primary campaigns, attacks back and forth among candidates. could you speak, though, to the one thing that joe biden has far more than any other candidate? people like him.

>> barnicle, you're exactly right. this really is about democrats, who they're comfortable with. when you get one on one which is what iowa is, which is what new hampshire is, which is what south carolina is, joe biden has that ability. people like him. they're comfortable with him. in the end, don't forget, this primary is about who we think could beat donald trump, and people still believe joe biden is the best candidate to beat donald trump, which is why he continues to lead in the national polls. and he still has that uncle joe is our buddy kind of thing going, and it's why he continues to remain in first place when everyone in d.c. has been saying for months, he's going to collapse, he's going to collapse. he hasn't collapsed in part because people like joe biden. >> and gene robinson, before you go, what do you think bloomberg's path is here? >> well, i'm still not sure he has a path, but, look, he's made strides. he just got in the race.

he's already at 6%. the question is where does he go from there? he's not going to be on the debate stage, he's not going to be mixing it up with the other candidates in that way. his strategy again seems to be to wait until the inevitable biden collapse takes place, and then he's ready to swoop in. he's already spent more money on television than the rest of the contenders put together, except for steyer. but, again, if that doesn't happen, as noah said, why does everybody assume joe biden is in third place or fourth place or whatever and actually someone else is leading when the polls say biden is ahead. it reminds me of 2016 when donald trump was ahead in the polls and everybody kept saying, oh, but marco rubio is really leading. no, donald trump is leading.

joe biden is leading. that's where we are. coming up on "morning joe," senator angus king will be a juror in the impeachment of the president if and when the house pushes forward. the independent senator joins us next on "morning joe." ♪oh there's no place like home for the holidays.♪

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politicians across this country, beat big coal, helping shut down hundreds of polluting plants and beat big tobacco, helping pass laws to save the next generation from addiction. all against big odds you can beat him. i'm mike bloomberg and i approve this message.

this report conclusively debunks the baseless conspiracy that the investigation into mr. trump's campaign and its ties to russia originated with political bias. in fact, the report quotes, the fbi deputy general counsel as saying, quote, the fbi would have been derelict in our responsibility had we not opened the case. i'm sure my republican friends will do their level best to reject the report's conclusion. in an effort to protect the president at all costs, the

grand old party in the senate has become the conspiracy caucus. one conspiracy theory after anoth another, none of them with basis and fact. it's no laughing matter. these conspiracies are not harmless. they are sinister, they are insidious, they damage our democracy. >> yeah. >> boy, i completely agree with that, especially with what ted cruz has done, and what senator kennedy has done from louisiana. just parroting the conspiracy theories of vladimir putin. there have also been a few republicans, marco rubio and others who say there is no equivalence between what russia did and what ukraine did. so that's great. mika, i think you're going to be accused of more bias, democratic bias, because this weekend you were hanging out.

you were seen hanging out with chuck schumer in a bar. explain yourself. >> we high-fived each other, actually. he was at the start of the big apple half marathon, and he was at the start and high-fiving everybody. i actually stopped for a selfie. >> so, willie, mika was there passing out cigarettes to everybody -- >> no, i ran the half marathon with my daughter and her friends. and one of her friends won it, delia hayes, who works for nicolle wallace. small world. and my daughter's mile? 7:05. >> impressive. >> willie, you and i were thinking about doing that, right? >> no. >> we decided not to just because we didn't want to show everybody else up. >> we were at tavern on the green with martinis cheering them on, as we always do.

joining us now, a member of the intelligence and armed services committees, independent senator angus king of maine. senator king, great to have you on the show. i want to get your takeaway from the justice department's ig report, but more specifically the attorney general's reframing of it. >> well, i never thought i would look back to jeff sessions with fondness, but i thought it was breathtaking, and combined with what he did at the time of the mueller report of mischaracterizing that, the report was very, very clear that there was no political bias, it wasn't a witch hunt. in fact, it would have been prosecutorial malpractice to ignore the information that came to the fbi in the summer of 2016. now, i thought the criticisms of the fisa process were well taken and important. fisa is a very important process and it's got to be handled with the utmost seriousness and accuracy because it involves, in effect, wire tapping and

examining of foreign officials as well as american officials involved in foreign espionage. so i think christopher wray had exactly the right response, which was the fbi as an institution act as ed as it sho followed the evidence as it should. i think that's an unbiased and accurate response to the report. >> and jeff sessions said they are going to remedy what was found in that report. i'm curious about this parallel investigation we're getting from john durham, the prosecutor who is working hand in hand with attorney general barr. the reaction yesterday effectively was, don't worry about that ig report. keep your eye -- and the president has said this as well -- on the durham report. what do you understand about this report and what the attorney general is looking for here? >> well, in the first place, i've never heard of a u.s. attorney coming out in the middle of an investigation and

make an announcement like that. that was what comey was criticized heavily for, you know, two years ago. there was no reason to make that statement. i would love to know or see if there were communications between bill barr and mr. durham yesterday to generate that comment. i don't know where that's going. the ig did an exhaustive study. it was 400 pages long. by the way, this is the second ig report that's looked at these issues within the fbi, and again, there wasn't any political bias. they started an investigation based on information that came from the ambassador from australia who heard information about the stolen emails. they had to open that investigation. if they hadn't, i don't know where we would be. i'm worried about what's going on with this guy up in connecticut. he has a good reputation, and i don't really understand, but when you start using the justice department to go after your

enemies, that's very, very dangerous. i just finished a chapter yesterday in a great book on impeachment about the nixon years, and the integrity of elliott richardson was an incredibly important part to getting to the bottom of what happened in watergate. and i just don't feel that the fellow that we have now in any way measures up to that standard. >> well, senator, you say that durham has a good reputation. we may need to put that in past tense, because can you or can anyone justify an officer of the court during an ongoing investigation putting out a statement deliberately intended to undermine an ig's report where there is no other reason than to be carrying the president's water as a pr hack for doing that? >> you put your finger on it. it's the timing. if he had made the statement six

months from now or two months ago or something, saying, you know, we're still looking into this matter, we haven't concluded anything. but to have it come out yesterday obviously intended to, as you say in the news business, step on the story of the ig report, is really concerning. as i say, it suggests political manipulation of the justice department and the justice system, which is -- it undermines confidence. there is no excuse for it. i've been around law for 50 years, and i've never seen anything exactly like that. >> so let me ask you also, senator, what is your reaction every sunday morning when you wake up and you see another member of the united states senate going on a news program and deliberately spouting russian propaganda, deliberately spouting talking points from vladimir putin and the gru and

others who have been deliberately trying for three years to push the message that now senators like ted cruz, senators like senator kennedy are pushing despite the fact they've been warned by the intel communities not to do this, that this is russian propaganda. we heard that from the fbi director yesterday. there is no evidence that ukraine tried to influence our election, but of course he and everybody else said that russia and other intel agents that trump appointed, the director, that actually what russia was doing was an imminent threat to american democracy. >> i've been on the intelligence committee, as you know, since i've gotten here, and for the last three years we probably had 25 or 30 hearings, briefing meetings, on what happened in 2016. i have never heard the word ukraine mentioned once. it's just not in the picture.

and what these guys are doing is mixing up the deliberate systematic campaign of the russians to undermine our elections with the fact that some politicians in the ukraine wrote op-eds saying they didn't like candidate trump sanctioning the annexation of crimea by putin. if somebody running for the president of france said, i think spain should take back florida, i think our politicians might react to that, and that's exactly what they did. but to confuse those things is really, i think, deliberately throwing sand in the air. and as you point out, a lot of this goes back to putin in february of 2017 trying to cast blame back on ukraine. they shouldn't do it. you know, to use the word "interfere," i think ted cruz used the word meddle. okay, they wrote an op-ed, but it's not like anything on the scale. it's apples and oranges and

that's an understatement. >> senator king, thank you very much. great to get your perspective here. we're going to sneak in a final break of the morning. we're just moments away from house democrats announcing articles of impeachment against president trump. we're back in a moment. i wanted more from my copd medicine that's why i've got the power of 1, 2, 3 medicines with trelegy. the only fda-approved once-daily 3-in-1 copd treatment. ♪ trelegy ♪ the power of 1,2,3

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yes, it is, look at the 30 rock christmas tree. that is "i don't want to go home for christmas. a song from joe's band featured on a great new play list this hon d holiday season. >> why doesn't joe want to go home for christmas? is it something i said? that is a really good song, i love it. we're moments away from an expected announcement and articles of impeachment against the president of the united states. five sources familiar tell nbc news they will bring abuse of power and obstruction of congress charges. here is a moment from yesterday's hearing, eric swawell. >> who sent rudy giuliani to ukraine to smear joe biden.

>> donald trump. >> who fired marie yovanovitch? >> president trump. >> who told ambassador sond land and volker to work with giuliani? >> president trump. >> who told pence not to go to zelensky's inauguration. >> president trump. >> who decided to who would aid. >> president trump. >> who asked for a favor? >> president trump. >> who asked zelensky to investigate joe biden? >> donald trump tru. >> president trump is the central player in this scheme. >> you know, those answers are all obvious, everybody knows, and it is still stark, laid out,

just like even as uneven has robert mueller's testimony was at times back this summer, just as stark and shocking. that the president of the united states, the commander in chief, did all of those things. >> and stark and shocking and glaring and you think about the fact -- i just continue -- last week the site, the middle of all of this, the president still this week talking about rudy coming back i don't know where he has been but he is bridgie ba report back. and he is still trying to get foreign assistance in this election. last week i said something on tv about how after it of the over he would try to induce more foreign interference, and he is doing it right now.

lavrov is in the oval office today. so glaring and tark, yes, and just frankly unbelievable. >> so clare, we should stop and recognize in about six minutes we'll see a moment in american history where you will have democrats in the house introduce two articles of impeachment. one on obstruction of justice. this is gone just about as everyone predicted it would for months, which is to say the house would vote for impeachment, they would hand down this indictment to the senate, and the republicans would not vote to convict. capture what we're going to see here? >> you're going to see the formal charges that have been

scareful carefully crafted. and you have to remember that repetition are these facts best friend in terms of the american people. my republican colleagues, i want to say two things, stop it, just stop doing what you're doing. you know someone expressing their opinion about who they want to be president is not the same as what russia did. it is a fols e kwif lalse equiv they're trying to confuse americans about what went on. and hopefully a handful of them will dot right thing. >> you know these are, at least for me and i think a lot of people, particularly troubling times. we have all of the republicans on one side of the aisle, the

democrats have the facts which mean very little when combatting triable truth. we're going to hear more about it in five or six witnesses. basically the pentagon papers where trillions have been wasted. that is at a minimum in terms of the charges. the lives lost today, hurt today, damaged today in hospitals throughout the country. the cost of caring for the people that went to that afc, the cost of their families, and the country seemingly yawns at this because of of the inundation of lies and duplicity from this president, white house, and the lives of

afghanistan in the past. >> the self-inflicted wounds by this president, russia or whether or not it was his instands of obstruction of justice if it was ukraine or the continuing attacks of our intelligence communities. the continuing attack of our united states military hero that's have done incredible intell work for us on these other issues. it distracts, and you bring up such a great point, it distracts from the more important issues right in front of us. afghanistan, the lives in afghanistan, what is happening right now with the rise of isis in syria. some people like mika's dad giving their life to spread democracy across europe and across the globe. those are the costs of this

recklessness, those are the cost of the conspiracy theories, the cost of these lies, and that is in the end the great tragedy of the trump administration. he could have done soech more than he has done. >> moments from now, democrats will announce who charges against the president, abuse of power and obstruction of congress. that does it for us and stephanie ruhle is picking up coverage right now. >> thank you. it is tuesday, december 10th, and we start with breaking news. leading house democrats are krpted to announce articles of impeachment charging president trump with obstruction of congress. we have a fantastic team here to

cover every angle of the story. i want to start first with my colleagues here, garrett, what are we expecting to hear? >> the speaker will be backed by several chair people that investigated these. the speaker will pull out two articles of impeachment against this president and they will move very quickly toward the house. we expect to see them marked up, and it is a very fast proprocess. and the judiciary committee members meeting early this morning rolling straight into this